Naughty By Nature Dispute Fueled By Treach’s ‘Tall Midget’ Diss Track

Look out Donald Trump, you’re not the only one that can rattle off the phrase, “you’re fired!” Turns out, Naughty by Nature’s Treach has no qualms about owning Trump’s signature line, using Twitter to “fire” longtime partner in rhyme Vin Rock. If that wasn’t enough, the “O.P.P.” MC even released an incendiary diss track, “Tall Midget” on Wednesday (May 8) after Vinnie responded to his tweet saying, “You can’t Fire the Owner.”

“Vinnie from NAUGHTY BY NATURE is Officially FIRED!! Anything he does besides shows til Sept is Frugazy!! F-ck him & the Ground he Walks!!” Treach tweeted Monday (May 6) night. “Anybody that f–ks with that Bitch ass Ni–a Don’t F-ck with Me!! No NAUGHTY shows are Cancelled that’s on the Calendar!!”

“I’m waking to drama. Spoke to my publicist. Silence is Golden. In the meantime Business 101: You can’t Fire the Owner ;-)” Vinnie responded. Fans of the 1990’s rap collective, who won the Best Rap Album Grammy for 96’s brilliant Poverty’s Paradise, were hoping Anthony Criss’ tweet was the result of a “hack,” but that was quickly dismissed by the East Orange native.

“My Twitter Account wasnt Hacked!! I said it & Stand By it!!” he tweeted.

As for Treach’s lyrical admonishment, “Tall Midget” is a 2-minute long airing of dirty laundry, with Trigger making claims that he wrote Vinnie’s rhymes, that his sidekick was fat like “Winnie the Pooh,” before derisively calling him “Uncle Ad Lib” and warning him that he should never bite the hand that feeds him.

The hook, though, is very catchy: “Industry rule number 100 is funny, tall midgets get short money.”

“We never wanted to be the group that goes though anything that we can’t resolve on our own, or anything else,” explained Treach, who also dropped mixtape called Tribal Treach.” “Nobody—me being Treach, Kay and Vin being Vin – is larger than the group. We came in on some ego-free sh–. Now, when somebody comes and gets larger than the group, it’s gonna be a problem. If you see any of our albums, it says ‘written and produced by Naughty By Nature.’ Because, homie you was somebody that was over there beat-boxing and break-dancing and any lyrics you had anywhere, was written for you. Don’t never get larger than the group. The producer and the writer of the group are always like ‘we, we, we,’ not ‘me, me, me.’ Even if you don’t do sh–, we gonna make sure you taken care of for the rest of your life.”

The rapid-fire spitter went on to balk at Vinnie’s claims of being an “owner.”

“How dare you ever play like you bigger than the group, or call yourself the owner?” Treach continued. “You’re the boss or you the shot-caller. Or you’re anything else other than what the f— you are—which is a ni–a that needs to be enjoying the f—ing ride. Don’t never question who I am, what I do, how I am. Don’t stay in ya lane—play ya position. Dogs, you can be hired help at any time. You never wrote one hit. You never produced one hit song. You came on as a homie that was there…we threw you a lot of bones just to keep you up in there ’cause you was the homie, from the door, who was up in there. And we always fit you in when there wasn’t a spot for you to be in.”

Talk about awkward, outside of the duo not communicating on a personal level since 2011, the group is scheduled to continue to perform shows together this month, including The Roots’ annual picnic in June.

“Me and Vin haven’t really spoke in like two years, and do more than 100 shows a year-on the same stage,” Treach said. “Wouldn’t nobody know it, because the business is one thing, personal is something else. When sh– is going behind people back and somebody is acting like they above people and other things are being set up that the groups doesn’t know about, it has to be stopped.”

Let’s just hope these two can work it out so they can keep on performing those classic anthems like 19 Naughty III’s “Hip Hop Hooray.”